Mask Doppelganger

Undisguised, it is a gaunt, hairless, gray-green humanoid with a reptilian cast and huge, unblinking eyes. Its cool, rubbery skin always oozes mucus, and it seems boneless though its bones are merely very pliant. The wide, thin-lipped mouth is too big for its face and full of small barbed teeth, including two snakelike fangs. Ears and nose are mere pinholes.

It prefers to hide inside the skin of a dead human, passing as an ordinary person though gaining none of the victim's class abilities. The preservative slime it sweats keeps a stolen skin usable for up to twelve months with only slight decay. Most demihumans are too small or slender to wear. Speech is the weak point: the creature knows language poorly and its mouth is the wrong shape, so it talks haltingly in a strange, echoing cadence, and many feign a sore throat. Anyone who studies one closely may make a senses check; success reveals something amiss, such as a loose, bloody fold of skin or a hint of rot.

Wearing a shell, it uses any weapon at hand and may wear armor at that armor's usual AC, but is only AC 10 without it; a careless one may betray itself with a weapon its shell's class could never use. Its true body is AC 7, and armor slides off when it reverts.

When exposed, or by choice, it sweats a second chemical that dissolves the borrowed skin into pink sludge within seconds. Watchers below 3 Hit Dice or levels are stunned automatically during the opening round; those of 3 to 5 must save vs. paralyzation or suffer the same; those of 6 or more are unaffected.

In true form it rakes twice per round for 1-3 points each. If both claws strike one target, it holds on and may also bite for 1d4+2. The venom attacks muscle control. A victim who fails a save vs. poison acts normally that round and the next, then collapses, unable to move voluntary muscles for 2d6+3 (5-15) rounds. A successful save still leaves the victim under a slow effect for 2d6 (2-12) rounds, beginning two rounds after being bitten. Each new bite needs a fresh save, and anyone bitten in three straight rounds must save vs. death magic or suffer heart failure and die. The paralyzed stay fully aware, which makes the fate of those skinned on the spot best left undescribed.

Clans lurk at the edges of human lands, replacing a whole hamlet or a noble's country house under chiefs who take quiet roles. Others serve mighty evil masters for wages of human meat, fresh skins, and gems or art prized for beauty; clans with an oratore also want scrolls.

A clan has one chief per six ordinary members (6-11 means one chief, 12-17 two, 18-20 three). A chief has 4+1 Hit Dice and Morale 12, shared by those fighting beside it; without one, the creatures have Morale 8. There is a 70% chance of a single oratore, 100% if two or more chiefs are present, and never more than one. An oratore has 3 Hit Dice and Morale 14, which it also lends to its companions, and has the spellcasting of a priest of 3rd level and a wizard of 3rd level at once. Its wizard magic comes from four schools (invocation/evocation, illusion/phantasm, enchantment/charm, alteration), its priest magic from the Thought, Protection, Divination, Charm and All spheres, and it may read any scroll the clan owns.

There is a 30% chance a clan also has 1-4 young. These have 1 Hit Die, claws dealing 1 point, no venom and no skin-dissolving sweat, and cannot wear a shell, so adults hide them, often beside prisoners kept for the larder.

These carnivores scavenge only when desperate. They favor intelligent prey and enjoy loudly debating the merits of each captive within that captive's hearing. Their diet keeps them apart from a region's wider ecology.